This election cycle was so vicious that some people are worried the country may not be able come together again. As older adults, we’ve seen other conflicts that tore our country apart, and our nation always came back as one, each time a bit more tolerant, a bit more inclusive.

What we need to heal and balance our country today is wisdom. And that’s exactly where seniors have the edge.

Having lived through the 1960s, we’ve experienced the tremendous progress that’s possible when upheaval seems to be the order of the day. Now we have the opportunity to meet the challenge head on once more.

This time, we have energy and talents honed by years of service, and we’ve developed the patience and insight to apply them more judiciously. We know how to put our differences aside and work together. We have a clear vision of what’s right and we know how to get it done.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

EDITOR’S NOTE

Kathy Dean Contributing Editor

This is the season for connecting in family and community circles, sharing food and joy. Let’s also use this holiday to heal any rifts left over from the previous months of division.

We wish you Peace on Earth and the wisdom to achieve it.

Atlanta Senior Life focuses on the interests, accomplishments and lifestyles of the active senior population in metro Atlanta. It aims to inspire readers to embrace a more rewarding life by informing them of opportunities to expand their horizons, express their talents and engage in their community.

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DALE PATTERSON

Christmas Music from the Choral Guild of Atlanta

By Joe Earle

Dale Patterson was recruited for Choral Guild of Atlanta while shopping. She was browsing in a Buckhead silver shop about five years ago when she heard a tune she liked in the store’s background music and she started to sing along.

Sheila Pater, a member of the guild, worked in the shop. She heard Patterson singing to herself and took notice.

“I said, “You have such a beautiful voice. You should come sing with the Choral Guild,’” Pater remembered.

It worked. Soon Patterson joined fellow soprano Pater as a singer with the guild, an amateur ensemble that performs classical and contemporary choral works, and is now in its 77th season.

Patterson said the guild was started in 1939 by the Atlanta Music Club as the Music Club Chorus, and is one of the oldest metro Atlanta groups still performing. “It started, I believe, as a community singing group,” she said.

The group was renamed the Choral Guild of Atlanta in 1947, according to the guild’s webpage. In the 1960s, the group sang with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and the chorus has traveled to Australia and Europe to perform. In 1980, the guild played Carnegie Hall in New York City.

Current guild members come “from every walk of life,” Pater explained, and from across metro Atlanta. Pater lives in Sandy Springs. Patterson lives in Buckhead. “There are really no professional musicians per se,” Pater said, “just people who love to sing. There’s lots of what I would call ‘church-choir-type singers’ who enjoy singing.”

Patterson says she’s been singing throughout her life. “I think there’s an inexplicable, unattainable thing that kind of speaks to your soul,” she said. “There’s something about music, and singing in particular, that connects to my soul.”